The Broody Brit for Christmas (Holiday Springs #1) - M.J. Fields Page 0,14
shoot them back.
We both set our glasses on the bar, and Jenny tells the hot Brit, “Four more.”
“Oh my God.” I laugh, shaking my head, no.
She nods. “Bobby’s picking us up. Annnnnd, we both have tomorrow off!”
Still laughing, I remind her, “You have kids!”
She shakes her head. “And I have a good man at home, who will feed them, get them to school, and let me sleep off the hangover I so deserve. By the time they get home, I’ll be good as new. Tonight, let’s have fun and forget.”
“To having fun and forgetting,” I repeat, nodding as I lift the fourth shot glass.
Rule Number Six
When in doubt… accounting
Raff
I must be out of my bloody mind. I nod to Sally, the evening’s lead bartender, as I force myself away from the redhead who’s had my dick twitching—even before any physical contact has been made—for the first time in many years. I walk toward my office to do what I’d come in this evening to do: the bloody financial reports.
Closing the heavy wooden door behind me while cursing myself, I walk to the old worn black, leather desk chair left here by the previous owner and sit down.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I let out a long sigh and gaze at the framed picture that sits on my desk.
Leaning forward and grabbing the frame, I look into my wife’s eyes. “I know. We had a pact. But we made that agreement before we had Nathaniel. We agreed to it before becoming Mum and Dad.”
I can envision her bottom lip pop out in a teasing pout. I can hear her voice in my head, goading me for being too emotional.
“Never a sensitive bone in my body until you, so cast your blame where it belongs,” I tell her… well, I tell the fucking picture frame as I set it back on my desk. “On you.”
I look at Hope and our boy in the photo taken just a month before her accident. I feel that sad fucking smile tug at my lips, a smile that I never realized was sad until Nathaniel pointed it out.
Since I came to the States, the plan has always been to work while Nathaniel was at school and spend all my free time with my son. After a couple of months of that, he started going to sleepovers, birthday parties and to stay with his aunt Faith on occasion. With last year’s birthday wish, I realized I was still a man, and I still had needs. I have a few women on the side, just for fun, no strings. And this situation has worked well for Nathaniel and me. Never would I have imagined that the woman who gave Nathaniel a verbal lashing for stealing a piece of candy, a redhead who has hair like Hope, but a bit darker, more auburn, who looked at me with the same wonder-filled eyes as Hope did ‘once upon our time,’ but not her smile, would have this effect on me. And now all I can think about is how much I want to go back to the bar to see her, whatever the hell her name is… smile.
After stealing another piece of candy, but handing her two nickels and watching her blush spread up her neck, I celebrated the day Hope was born over cake, listening to this year’s wish for me. But the ordeal with Red had me agitated. Getting back to our home, Nathaniel asked me with warmth in his eyes if I was nice to her. I knew damn well he saw the resemblance to his mother in her as well. I ignored his question and asked if he felt like pizza and a beer. Pizza and a beer, I said, to my own kid! And just now, when she saw me behind the bar, that same blush twisted my gut. I wonder how her skin will prickle and flush when I go in search of the answer to a question I’ve been pondering for weeks, is she a natural redhead?
“Fuck,” I snap at myself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. These are just thoughts, Raff!”
Throwing a childlike fit of my own, I curse myself for feeling more than my normal one-night stand attraction. I lean forward, my elbows on the desk, my face resting in my hands, and look at her, my Hope.
“Looks at me a lot like you did, and it pisses me right off.”
Turning the photo around, I focus on my task—nothing like financial reports to